eSports Game Review: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

What is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is an extremely popular electronic sport (eSport) belonging to the first-person shooter (FPS) genre. Developed by Hidden Path Entertainment in association with Valve Corporation, the game was released on August 21 2012. Since then, it has sold more than 40 million copies and has become a global phenomenon.

How Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is played

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a multiplayer first-person shooter played in a team vs team format, with 5 players on each side. The two opposing teams (the Terrorists and the Counter-Terrorists) confront each other on a given map over a series of 16-30 rounds (plus overtime rounds if the score is tied at the end).

At the beginning of each round the two teams spawn in different and predetermined map locations. Players are locked in place for 15 seconds and during this time they can buy weapons and equipment using the money they have at their disposal. They can also exchange weapons among themselves, so if one player has money to spare, he can buy weapons for multiple team members. The Terrorists receive a bomb which they need to plant in one of two areas (A and B), and then prevent the Counter-Terrorists from defusing it.

Each round lasts for 130 seconds or until one of the teams reaches a win condition: kill the entire enemy team (for Terrorists), plant the bomb and have it explode (for Terrorists), defuse the bomb (for Counter-Terrorists), kill the entire enemy team and defuse the bomb if it has been planted (for Counter-Terrorists). If none of these conditions is reached during the round’s regular time, the Counter-Terrorists win by default.

Players receive money every time they kill an enemy. They also receive an important amount of money if their team wins a round. If they lose however, their reward will be minimal, which may force them to either buy poor weapons in the next round or simply play with pistols, which they receive by default at the start of each round.

After the first 15 rounds, the two teams swap sides: Counter-Terrorists become Terrorists and vice versa. The team that gets first to 16 round victories wins the game.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s professional scene

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has a well established professional scene with a lot of teams, coaches, analysts, tournaments and sponsors. Around 25 important competitions (plus qualifiers for each of them) are being organized each year, with prize pools ranging from 100.000 to 1.5 million dollars. ESL Pro League, DreamHack Masters, ESL One, Intel Extreme Masters, StarLadder i-League StarSeries, EPICENTER and ELEAGUE Major are some of the most important ones.

Thanks to Counter-Strike:Global Offensive’s popularity, the top CS:GO teams and players have a tremendous number of fans and are well known by gamers all over the world. Ask any CS:GO enthusiast about teams like SK Gaming, Faze Clan, Virtus.pro, Team Liquid, Cloud9, G2, Natus Vincere or Ninjas in Pyjamas, or players such as Fallen, olofmeister, kennyS, s1mple or GeT_RiGhT and they will know who you’re talking about.

Becoming a successful Counter-Strike: Global Offensive bettor

Becoming a successful CS:GO bettor requires you to either develop a solid understanding of the game and its professional scene, or gain access to people who are already experts in this field.

Playing CS:GO, watching professional tournaments and studying the professional scene will sharpen your intuition as a CS:GO bettor and allow you make much more accurate predictions. In addition to this, you should also develop your own betting strategy or system and incorporate sound betting tactics and principles in it.

At esportsbookies.com, we keep you up to date with the critical events that are shaping the CS:GO community and can affect your success as an eSports bettor. What happened at the latest CS:GO tournament and who emerged victorious? What is the next important tournament and what is the current form of the teams that will participate in it? Has the game been patched recently? What are the latest player transfers?

In our Counter-Strike: Global Offensive section, we keep you up to date with all of these things and give you quick access to the most recent and relevant information. We also offer you in depth team analyses and valuable betting tips that can greatly improve your results as a CS:GO bettor.